During
the
next
few
hours
everything
was
going
to
be
up to
Baldy
Smith
and
his
10,000.
Smith
took
the
men
toward Petersburg,
with
his
own
divisions
on
the
right
and
the
colored
troops
on
the
left,
and
as
the
morning
wore
on
the
Rebel resistance
grew
stiffer,
until
at
last
Hinks
had
to
move
his men
out
into
line
of
battle
and
storm
a
little
hill
where
infantry
and
a
couple
of
guns
offered
more
than
skirmish-line opposition.
The
colored
boys
went
up
the
hill
with
a
rush, driving
away
the
defenders
and
capturing
one
of
the
guns, but
the
fight
caused
a
delay
and
it
was
nearly
noon
when Smith's
column
came
up
against
the
main
line
of
Confederate works.
These
looked
dangerous.
The
City
Point
Railroad
ran
half a
mile
or
more
south
of
the
river,
and
between
the
railroad and
the
river
the
ground
was
low
and
the
Rebel
trench
line slanted
back
toward
the
northwest,
the
ground
in
its
front covered
by
guns
mounted
on
bluffs
on
the
far
side
of
the
river. Just
south
of
the
railroad
the
ground
rose,
and
a
long,
uneven crest
ran
south
for
several
miles,
and
this
high
ground
was covered
with
fortifications
that
appeared
to
be
stronger
than anything
that
had
been
seen
at
Cold
Harbor.
At
intervals
there
were
redoubts—square
forts,
solidly
built, with
embrasures
for
artillery.
The
redoubts
were
connected
by ponderous
raised
breastworks,
twenty
feet
thick
at
the
base and
six
feet
high.
In
front
of
the
breastworks
there
was
a ditch,
fifteen
feet
wide
by
six
or
eight
feet
deep,
and
a
few yards
in
front
of
the
ditch
there
was
an
interminable
slashing of
felled
trees
anchored
in
place
with
branches
all
interlaced.
From
end
to
end
of
the
line
the
ground
in
front
of
the
slashing
was
open
for
half
a
mile
so
that
it
could
be
swept
by
fire from
the
forest
and
trenches.
Close
to
the
slashing
there
were deep
rifle
pits
for
the
skirmishers.
5
All
in
all,
it
was
no
place
to
approach
lightly.
It
seemed
to Smith
that
the
position
was
even
stronger
than
the
mountain-top
line
the
Confederates
had
held
at
Chattanooga.
That
line, to
be
sure,
had
finally
been
stormed,
but
no
one
quite
understood
even
yet
how
it
had
been
done
and
one
man
who watched
it
wrote
that
the
victory
looked
like
"a
visible
interposition
of
God."
Smith
had
to
form
his
battle
lines
in
deep woods
and
that
took
time,
and
it
was
two
o'clock
or
later
before
he
had
everything
ready.
Even
when
the
lines
were
formed
Smith
was
not
disposed to
be
hasty.
It
was
clear
to
him
that
if
these
Rebel
trenches were
held
in
strength,
no
attack
could
possibly
succeed. Potentially,
the
place
was
a
worse
deathtrap
than
Cold
Harbor,
and
Smith
was
not
going
to
order
an
attack
until
he
had studied
things
very
carefully.
He
went
out
in
front
personally
to
do
his
looking,
exposing
himself
to
dangerous
sniper fire,
and
he
spent
two
full
hours
making
his
survey,
going from
end
to
end
of
the
lines
and
studying
the
situation
with the
canny
eye
of
a
skilled
engineer.
6
Now
these
Confederate
works
were
just
as
strong
as
they looked,
but
they
had
one
glaring
weakness:
they
contained hardly
any
soldiers.
Confederate
commander
here
was
the
famous
General Pierre
Gustave
Toutant
Beauregard,
a
vain
and
theatrical
personality,
but
at
the
same
time
a
very
good
soldier.
He
was responsible
for
the
defense
of
everything
south
of
the
James River,
and
after
he
had
bottled
Butler's
army
up
at
Bermuda Hundred
he
had
to
send
some
of
his
best
troops
across
the river
to
help
Lee,
and
on
this
day
of
June
15
he
had
no
more than
7,000
soldiers
in
his
command.
Most
of
these
were
in
the Bermuda
Hundred
lines,
which
was
where
most
of
the
pressure
had
been
so
far,
and
in
front
of
Petersburg
there
were barely
2,200
men,
including
home
guards
and
cavalry.
With several
miles
of
trench
to
occupy,
these
were
spread
very
thin, one
infantryman
to
every
four
or
five
yards
of
trench.
They could
kill
a
certain
number
of
Yankees
but
they
could
not
possibly
beat
off
a
really
determined
attack,
and
no
one
knew
it any
better
than
Beauregard
did.
He
had
been
calling
for
help, and
a
division
of
the
troops
that
had
been
sent
to
Lee
was on
its
way
back
to
him,
but
it
could
not
reach
him
until
midnight
or
later
and
until
then
he
was
strictly
on
his
own.
7